somebody who has a loss like this, just think of the word professional. that's what we try to do. this sort of body language here, she's trying to comfort here, do you think she's buying it? not with that body language. she's not really buying it. some people won't. some people will never be the same. like that thing with katrina, some people are really good but you can tell just under the surface that they are a wreck. give them space, try to be professional, try to comfort them if you can, but some people won't let you. and don't take it personal. that's the main thing, just don't take it personal. sometimes people just can't be helped. they are not mad at you, they don't hate you, you are trying to help them. they probably understand that, but they have suffered a terrific loss and some people you can't help. but try. you got to try anyway. that's kind of why we're here, we want to try. some other feels,

disorientation, physical or emotional numbness, loss of trust or abandonment, cranky. i would be. if i had to go shave in the marina medal school, my cat ran away, i'd be pissed. team behavior, be calm. you don't want to be excited and crazed. be systematic, demonstrate by example. if you are calm and cool and under control, people will see you are there to help. if you act like a maniac, they are going to act like a maniac. pails yourself. you are going to reach a point where you had enough. take some time out, take the whole group, have a seat away from whatever you are doing and just take a break. that was part of the things they found in oklahoma, they blew that thing up and all the disaster service people were sitting there taking a break, you know, they worked 12 hour shifts, 12 on, 12 off, but

their break area was right across the street. the whole time they were taking a break, they were sitting there thinking they ought to be helping. so were they really getting a break in no. do something else. think about something else. pace yourself. emphasize teamwork, make sure everybody on the team is aware of the plan and if you are helping somebody, make sure they are aware of the plan. that's important. because some people just, what are you doing, why are you guys here? explain it to them. take a minute and explain it to them and they will help you, usually. it makes your job easier. rotate personnel as needed. people are going to get burned out, get tired. you don't want them to get hurt. take frequent breaks, eat and drink frequently and talk about what's going on. what's the disaster registry? we talked about this before. at each fire house there's a list of people in the neighborhood around that fire house, in that district, that

may have mobility problems, they have special needs. if you guys know anybody that has those, get in touch with us, we can give them the form and basically have them fill it out. what they will do is put the person's name and address in a lock box in the fire house. one of the jobs of the nert volunteers is to go to the fire house, get this lock box, they have the key, get the list of the names and send people out to check on them. for whatever reason, they might still be there. . >> exercise. basically to get you to start thinking how to prioritize the disaster and how you would send teams out to which incident you would handle. so let's make the assumption, today is saturday, an earthquake, magnitude 7.3 on the richter scale has struck 9.45 am this morning. the quake was on the north

heyward fault and lasted 10 seconds. 45 minutes later, the city has widespread damage, fire, police and paramedics are overwhelmed by thousands of calls. nert volunteers are gathering in appropriate staging areas. your objective is to set up a command structure and prioritize the incident. what is the first incident you want to respond to and why? what is the second incident you would respond to, and why? you would continue this process until all the incidents have been addressed. and you have to always remember what's the model of the nert program? come on, everyone, let's go. do the most good for the most amount of people. those who pick priority 1, 35 people reported missing or injured. what's the goal of the nert program? let's repeat it again. do the most good for the most

amount of people. so, thus, what's the second incident you would go to? 9 elderly people. this is what you have to deal with. once you dealt with people, then you would respond to other incidents. what is the mission of the fire department? save lives, protect property. life is much more important than property. all right, let's move on. so we've dealt with the people. once we dealt with the people incidents, they will now do property. so no particular order now. there's no particular order, we're just going to discuss this. a building is fully involved in fire. people have been reported missing. what can you do as nerts, as a nert team? rope it off, cordon it off. what else? good, runner to the fire department. do you have the tools and skills to extinguish a major

fire? no, you don't. notify the erd, evacuate -- assist the fire department if we get there, but don't become a victim. smell of gas. what can you do as nerts? turn off the gas. and what are the 3 situations when you want to shut the gas off? smell the gas, something -- oh, yeah, wheels are spinning and major building collapse. muni -- overhead muni wire, flopping around. what can you did as nerts? always assume all electricity is live and hot. so what can you do as nerts? cordon off the area, tell people to stay back. small fires reported in the rear of a building, what can you do as nerts? if it's still burning that small fire is now a very large fire. so all you can do is really notify the erd, evacuate the area, assist the fire

department. five buildings have suffered heavy damage -- heavy damage, kind of a clue there. three of the buildings have collapsed. what can you do as nerts? not quite nothing. would you go in to search a heavily damaged building? no. you will -- very good, notify erd, if there's a gas smell, shut the gas off. you can do something. even if it means everyone stay back, no one is trying to rush in. you are going to have your yellow helmet, orange vest. it's not a good idea, that building was pretty heavily damaged. are you going to fight them if they want to run in? no, let them go in. i would ask them to do what, though? what would you ask them before they went inside? can i have your name? and give me a phone number, i can contact maybe next of kin. is that kind of being cruel? no, you are trying to help them

out because if they are rushing in, they may not come out. but at least you have a name. a physical description, a clothing description. is that helpful? yeah, it's going yeah , it's goi ngto be helpful. with 9- 11, hurricane katrina, you have to take care of yourself because we're not going to be there. apply the nert perspectives to any suspected terrorism. we're going to use the term be nice. we're part of -- the president asked americans to volunteer to help improve your own community. you are doing that now. you are part of the umbrella called citizens corps. what's the objective? for you, it's to prepare for natural disasters, especially if you live here in san francisco, the earthquakes. form an exercise, neighborhood and workplace teams.

is that what you're do ?g we did a little practice right now. you are going to respond to immediate needs in your area following a major disaster. what about here in san francisco, major metropolitan area. what are some possible areas in the city? golden gate bridge, right here. beautiful sunset today, i was watching it as we got here. what else? the bay bridge, candlestick, monster park, 42,000 will be in attendance on any sold out giants game, 62,000 on a 49er game. what else? b of a building. transamerica. this is a major -- so these are -- those are buildings. but what else might you think about? bart, transportation. we'll talk about that. hospitals. city hall. these are possible target areas.

as we mentioned, civilian safety is the most important. point to yourself. your safety is the most important. when you are sizing up what are the dangers, what are your capabilities, what are your limitations. terrorism is no different from a natural disaster. you are going to respond the same way. be nice is not nice. b stands for biological. n is nuclear, i is incendiary and c is chemical. on the bottom scale, we have a likelihood it's going to take place and this scale here is the impact. so nuclear device, think of a nuclear bomb taking place, impact will affect a lot of people, yeah. high impact, what's the probability that a nuclear attack will take place? not that great.

as you move on, as the season progresses, then add a chemical release, over here, likelihood gets higher that would take place, less impact biological and explosive incendiaries. once every two weeks on the average and sometimes 2 -- i have a two in one night my last watch, incendiary incidents happened in the city. the probability it's going to take place, yeah, i'm telling you, on one night we had two incidents take place. people living here in the marina, let's say, did it impact you? no, very low impact. but it happens quite often in san francisco. sizing up, looking at incendiary explosive events, primary danger is obvious. biological chemical -- let's get back here.

can you see? biological, radio logical event may take place there. biological, thinking about anthrax, plague, don't really worry about prairie dog colonies here in san francisco. botulism. routes, you notice we've talked about that before, how would these agents get into our body system? inhaling it, ingesting, eating it or skin absorption, coming in contact with it. nuclear device, there's different types, there's nuclear dirty bombs radioactive release. incendiary incident, any kind of mechanical or electrical device used to start a fire. different nerve factors.

the department of transportation, explosive devices take place, some indicators in environment, are you looking for any type of unattended packages or boxes in high risk areas, liquids, mist -- this is going to be a biological or chemical release. numerous sick or dead animals or birds. any objects that does not seem right, do you want to touch it? i'm not sure what this is, let me jostle it around. no, no, don't do that. move away and report it. remember that. a cell phone, a call, calling 911, using your cell phone may detonate that device. so obviously don't use your cell phone. go to a hard wire phone, land

line phone, outside, and call 911. what do we do as first responders. when we come up do we use our walkie talkies or radio? no. you go to a hard wire phone, call it in and get the information back because it may detonate that using the radio frequency. remember we talked about suspected terrorism is a stop sign for you as nerts. you do not want to get hurt. any questions on the terrorism? bnice is not nice. incident takes place, it takes place here on the left side, this is called the hot zone. you obviously want to be in the cold zone. first responders, we're going to come up to our staging area in the warm area and start moving to get to the incident. you want to be in what zone? the cold zone.

uphill, upwind. you believe you have chemicals on your skin or clothing, obviously time is critical. remove everything from your body, wash your hands, flush your body with water. your safety is no. 1. direct contact with treating victims can expose you to contaminants. these people coming out of the bart might have been exposed to something, do you want to go and start touching them? do you want to let them leave? you are trying to contain them because where are they going to go? probably go to the hospital and then spread it. so call 911, warn others, direct them to wait for responders. hey, stop. help is forthcoming. if you are calling 911, just basic information you should know.

is it a fire, is this a crime scene. evacuation is not always the best way. sometimes you want to stay inside your house. chemicals dropped over, this vapor cloud is coming, coming towards -- hit the golden gate bridge, one direction, now coming toward the marina. pick up your radio, tell the marina residents shelter in place. don't go to your staging area out in the marina green. shelter in place. that may be one of your options. choose a room with no windows, as few as possible. pick a room with toilet, water, phone, have it large enough for family members. precut plastic with duct tape. there should be a law. have your disaster kit in that room, have snacks available for kids. turn off the hvac, heating,

ventilation air conditioning units because you don't want to be blowing in or sucking in the vapor cloud outside. fireplace, close the dampers and seal off your shelter in place room by using duct tape and terms of the emergency alert system. listen to the radio. that's it. do not try to call the school, try to pick up your children because do you want to leave the area? no, you want to shelter in place. people own pets. do not risk your safety for pets. in summary, it is likely you are at an incident that may be involved with bnice, your safety is the most important. limit your time, get your distance away from that and some type of shielding and listen to the emergency alert system, your radio. . >> there's an acronym that we use to use an extinguisher.

what's that acronym? we're going to take turns putting out this fire. you can see that it will make a pretty big mess but at least it put out the fire in your house or something like that. so when we want to shut off electricity is when we see an outlet or something smoking, when you smell that burning smell or if you are not really sure or if you do smell gas and it's safe to do so. if i am in the basement with this set up, this sort of ragedy old set up with switches and i smell gas, is it a good idea to be flicking these?

no, because there will be a spark. you should get outside and try to ventilate that garage or enclosed area. these contacts, these are one side and they go into the other side here. see how they are in there now? that's a closed switch right there. it's actually a 3 pull switch. there's 3 different pulls to this switch. they are open, now they are closed, if it's closed it should -- that's when you want to turn it on and off, when it's closed, and then open it if you have to. if you smell gas, you've probably got a leak. if the building is collapsed, there's probably going to be a leak. those are the 3 times you want to come out here and shut this thing off. it's real easy. you get your wrench and you turn it off. >> if i smell gas should i turn off the one behind my stove? . >> if you smell it coming from

your stove, sure. exactly. the only way to figure this out is by doing it. this is a real easy one. the one at your house isn't going to be that easy. . >> have a wrench at our building. >> it's not required by law but it's a good idea. at my house, i have one of these wrenches i bought at like a garage sale. the scenario begins now. . >> got a victim here, you are medical, you are medical. i need a trimer. get that board off of him. . >> we want to make sure she's alive. yes, she's alive. she is breathing. >> i need a person to operate

the lever. the only thing you can't move is what i'm standing on. everything else is free game. >> use this to be the fulcrum. >> u se this to be the fulcrum. >> u se this to be the fulcrum. . >> have the lever person stand here. you medical people stand by. let's bring it up high. bring it up high, bring it up high. secure the fulcrum. levers, put the blocks on the opposite side. a couple other pieces, a little higher. okay, somebody is securing that fulcrum when the weight comes down. let's lower it and see what happens. lower the lever.

okay, we bring the victim out. medical people, take care of the victim. . >> i lost a medical person. >> that's your safe place. . >> thanks for coming. we appreciate your being here. we know we are relying so much on you to take care of yourselves because we know we won't be there, there will be 40, 50 marina residents we won't be able to get to. you will be able to take care of >> good evening, everybody. my name is michael farrah. i'm the senior advisor to mayor newsom, and i want to welcome you all to city hall to

celebrate the second -- what will hopefully be forever -- arab heritage month celebration at city hall, so thank you all for coming. [applause] as you probably know, tonight is a difficult night for many people. the world series is going on, and i'm here to report to you aid is 0-0 so far, in the second inning. we will have it on during the reception. before we get started, i wanted to recognize and bring up two elected officials to speak briefly, supervisors avalos and mayor, who have always stood with the community -- supervisors avalos and mirkarimi, who have always stood with the community. they have consistently had their offices open when we had an issue. they're being here means a lot to us -- their being here means a lot to us. now more than ever, we need to be friends with government, and

knowing their door is open to us is appreciated. [applause] supervisor mirkarimi: good evening. i'm ross mirkarimi. i represent the fifth district, and i'm delighted to be standing up here with my colleague who will speak in a moment. i want to thank mike farrah for his leadership and mayor newsom for helping facilitate this gathering. i'm iranian american, persians, and throughout my -- [applause] throughout my life, my family had always had very close relationships with the arab and arab-american community. i spent a fair amount of time working in the middle east in jordan and iraq and traveling through loud the milk -- throughout the middle eastern areas, so i feel very much at home, and it is important that feeling is well represented in city hall. i look at the flags that are well illustrated year.

it amplifies the need that much more that san franciscans, californians should understand and become more acquainted with the arab-american culture. if the census proves me right, when the numbers come out next year officially, we will see a significant growth of the arab- american population in the san francisco bay area but also throughout the state of california. that is critical because it means that much more that arab- americans have the right and the reason to want to make sure that their interests are being well represented in local government and city government, and, of course, in federal government. i continue to look forward to working with everyone here. thank you for the contribution you make to making our city one of the most majestic on this planet. have a great festival. thank you. [applause] supervisor avalos: good evening. i represent district 11 in san

francisco, and as i became a candidate for supervisor and had been supervisor, i got to realize and learn more about the contributions of the arab- american community here in san francisco and the bay area. it is profound. i also got to really understand the link between the bay area and the middle east and how the conflict there affects us here locally as well, and we all live with this and strive for a world with peace, and part of that is a real understanding about the cultures of this world. we need to have a greater understanding and appreciation of the arab-american culture, the arab culture in the united states and in san francisco as well. this celebration is an important part of that work we have ahead of us together. i want to always say that my office is always open to hear from members of the community and to be invited to events in the community as well.

i look forward to a partnership that lasts many years, and that we will all live together in a peaceful world. thank you. [applause] >> we as a community have had really an amazing year, from the hearings about the flotilla at the board of supervisors to the hearings at the human rights commission about racial profiling. it has been a profound year for us, and it has raised a tremendous amount of awareness, not only in city hall, but in northern california and the nation about the issues we face as a community, but it has not just been those issues we have faced. we also had what i think is probably the most successful festival we have had in a long time with the arab cultural center, and each year, the film festival gets better and better. it continues to tell the story of our community and change

people's minds based on our -- on art. it is with that pleasure that i bring of our awardee for this year's arab heritage month certificate. michel, could you come up real quick? [applause] his work every year really changes people's hearts and minds. if you could just speak for a few minutes about the festival and the success you faced this year. here is the award for this year's fair of heritage month. thank you. [applause] -- this year's arab heritage month. thank you. [applause] >> find the executive director of the arab festival. -- i'm the executive director. will i accept this proclamation on behalf of the arab-american

community in sentences go with deep gratitude and affection -- the arab-american community in san francisco with deep gratitude and affection. allow me to thank our mayor, gavin newsom, for establishing arab heritage month, which will always be proudly remembered by our community and future generations. [applause] our thanks and appreciation also goes to mike farrah, a community member, leader, and representatives who worked diligently to make this a reality for our community. lastly shadi elkarra, who tirelessly put the details for this event together to make it materialize on the ground. thank you for your dedication to our community. most of